Plight Of Cambodian Refugees

September 07, 1985|By Kompha Seth and Kathy Railsback. Kompha Seth is executive director of the Cambodian Association of Illinois. Kathy Railsback served as a teacher and refugee advocate at the Phanat Nikhom refugee camp in Chonburi, Thailand.

Secretary of State George Shultz`s recent visit to one of the troubled refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border has drawn attention to the plight of Cambodian refugees in Southeast Asia.

According to news reports, 25,000 Cambodians, fortunate to have attained official ``refugee`` status, reside in the largest Thai camp, Khao-I-Dang, while another 230,000 live in makeshift camps along the border. Some refugees have been shuffled from one camp to another since the Vietnamese takeover of Cambodia in 1979 and have endured ``rejections`` from virtually all potential resettlement countries. Almost all the refugees who escaped from Cambodia did so at great peril, risking starvation, gunfire from Vietnamese and Thai border guards, prison, torture and disease.

It is no surprise that increasing numbers of refugees, who have spent years living in this fashion after surviving the horrors of ``The Killing Fields,`` have developed severe depression and illness.

In view of this, reports of the State Department`s plan to discontinue processing Cambodian refugees for resettlement are alarming. A State Department fact sheet states: ``The U.S. and other resettlement countries have come to the end of a large pool of eligible refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.`` The statement notes that between 14,000 and 16,000 refugees have been deemed ineligible because of suspected past links with the Khmer Rouge or ``otherwise failing to qualify as a refugee under Section 101 (a) (42) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.`` Such phraseology is reminiscent of the stark ``rejection`` letters issued to thousands of Southeast Asian refugees in recent years: ``It has been determined that you are not a refugee as defined under the laws of the United States.``

The State Department should re-examine the cases of the refugees at Khao- I-Dang--a number of whom have immediate family members in the U.S.--and work to persuade the Thai government to allow the 4,300 ``food card holders`` to be considered for resettlement. In addition, it should consider for resettlement border camp residents with immediate family members in the U.S. or a clear reason to fear persecution if forced to return to their wartorn homeland.

For the vast majority of the border camp residents, relief will come only when the Vietnamese withdraw from Cambodia or permit some modicum of self-rule.

America stands to benefit not only from increased stability in a region that is important to us economically and politically, and from our country`s increased stature in world opinion, but from the satisfaction derived from accomplishing a truly great humanitarian act in one small part of the world.